The Gospel of St. Matthew

Schmidt Number: S-2283

On-line since: 15th January, 2017

LECTURE TWELVE

Berne,September 12, 1910

When we
think of the evolution of humanity advancing from stage
to stage as described by Spiritual Science, we shall
attach the very greatest significance to the fact that
man, incarnating again and again in the course of the
different epochs, gradually reaches higher degrees of
perfection, until he is finally able to kindle into
activity within himself powers befitting the various
stages of planetary evolution. On the one side we see man
ascending gradually towards his divine goal. But he would
never be capable of reaching the heights intended for him
if Beings whose paths of development in the Universe have
differed from his own, did not come to his aid.

From time
to time — for so it may be expressed — Beings
from other spheres enter into and unite with earthly and
human evolution in order to lift man to their own
heights. Even during the earlier planetary embodiments of
our Earth, even during Old Saturn, sublime Beings —
the Thrones — sacrificed their will-substance in
order that the earliest beginnings of the physical human
body, might be established. This is only one example of
what has taken place on a vast scale. But Beings whose
development has advanced beyond that of man do indeed
descend to his realm and unite with Earth-evolution by
dwelling for a time within a human soul. It is also
sometimes said that these Beings ‘assume human
form’, or more simply, that they appear as an
aspiring power in the soul of a man who since he is
ensouled by a god, is able to achieve more in evolution
than is possible for others. To hear of such things goes
against the grain at the present time when the tendency
is to reduce everything to one level and to apply
materialistic ideas universally. Only a rudiment has
persisted of the conception just referred to. The
suggestion that a man is the vehicle of a Being from
higher realms would be regarded as sheer superstition
nowadays. But a rudiment at least of this truth has been
preserved, even in this materialistic age, although it
takes the form of a subconscious belief in what is deemed
miraculous. People still believe that
‘geniuses’ appear here and there. Even normal
modern consciousness recognizes men of genius who stand
out from the masses and of whom it is said that they
possess faculties differing from those of ordinary human
nature. A belief in ‘geniuses’ persists even
to-day. But there are also circles where such belief has
been abandoned; the very existence of men of genius is
refuted because materialistic thinking has lost all sense
of the realities of the spiritual life. Nevertheless
belief in genius is quite widespread and if this belief
is not empty credulity it will admit that a power
different from that of the ordinary human faculties comes
to expression through a man of genius who is striving to
give an impetus to evolution. If attention were given to
teachings cognizant of the truth about men of genius, it
would be realised when such a person appears suddenly to
have become an embodiment of infinite goodness, greatness
and strength, that this is a case where a spiritual power
has descended and taken possession of the centre from
which such Beings must work, namely from the inmost
nature of man himself.

It should
be clear to an anthroposophist from the outset that there
are these two possibilities: the ascent of man to
spiritual heights in the course of his evolution, and the
descent of divine-spiritual Beings into human bodies or
human souls. A passage in the Rosicrucian Mystery Play [
Note 01 ] points to the fact that
when something of importance is to take place in the
evolution of humanity, a divine Being must as it were
unite with and permeate a human soul. This is a necessity
of evolution.

To
understand this in relation to the spiritual evolution of
our planet, we will remind ourselves that in very early
times of its existence the Earth was still united with
the Sun. In a remotely distant past the Sun separated
from the Earth. Anthroposophists know that this was not
merely a separation of Earth-substance and Sun-substance
in the material sense, but a separation of
divine-spiritual Beings who were connected with the Sun
or with the other planets. After the separation of the
Sun from the Earth, certain spiritual Beings remained
united with the Earth, whereas others remained united
with the Sun; these latter were Beings who, because their
development had progressed beyond the stage attainable in
earthly conditions, could not complete their further
evolution on the Earth. Thus certain spiritual Beings
remained even more closely connected with the Earth,
whereas other Beings sent their influences and forces
from the Sun into earthly existence. After the separation
of the Sun there are, as it were, two arenas — the
Earth with its Beings and the Sun with its Beings. The
spiritual Beings who can be helpers of man from a higher
sphere are those who transferred their arena of activity
from the Earth to the Sun. And from thence — from
the Sun-sphere — come the Beings who from time to
time unite with earthly humanity in order to lead the
evolution of the Earth and of Man to further stages.

In the
myths of many peoples there are constant references to
‘Sun Heroes’ — Beings who work from
spiritual spheres into the evolution of humanity. A man
who is permeated by a Sun Being is of far greater
significance than his exterior appearance at first
reveals. The exterior appearance is an illusion, is maya,
and the real Being is behind the maya —
only to be divined by one who is able to look into the
very depths of a nature such as this.

In the
Mysteries there was, and there still is, knowledge of
this twofold aspect of the evolutionary course of
humanity. Distinction has always been made between divine
Spirits who come down from the spiritual realm and men
who strive upwards from the Earth towards Initiation into
the secrets of spiritual reality. What, then, is the
nature of the Being we call Christ?

In the
lecture yesterday we learnt that ‘Christ, the Son
of the Living God’ is a Being who descends. If we
were to use a term current in oriental philosophy, we
should call Him an ‘Avatar’ — a
descending God. But it is only from a definite point that
we can speak of Him as a descending Being. As such He is
described by all the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. At the moment of the Baptism by John this
Being came down from the realm of Sun-existence to the
Earth and united with a human being. We must realise that
according to the views of the four Evangelists, this Sun
Being is the greatest Avatar of all, the greatest of all
other Sun Beings who have ever descended. Hence it is to
be expected that a specially prepared nature in humanity
must grow towards His level.

All four
Evangelists tell of the Sun Being, of the ‘Son of
the living God’, who comes to man to help his
evolution forward, but only the writers of the Gospel of
St. Matthew and St. Luke tell of the man who
developed to the stage where he could receive this Sun
Being into himself. From these Gospels we learn that for
thirty years the man in question prepared for the great
moment when he could become the vehicle for the Sun
Being. And because the Being we call Christ is so
universal, so all-embracing, the preparation of the
bodily sheaths able to receive Him could not be a simple
process. Very specially prepared physical and etheric
sheaths were needed to receive the descending Sun
Being.

From our
study of the Matthew Gospel we have learnt how and whence
these sheaths were produced. But from these physical and
etheric sheaths derived from the forty-two generations of
the Hebrew people and prepared for the Sun Being, neither
the astral body nor the actual Ego-bearer could be
directly unfolded. For this purpose a special measure was
necessary, achieved through its instrumentality of a
different Being — namely, the Nathan Jesus, whose
early history is narrated in the Luke Gospel. [ Note 02 ] Then, as we heard, the Jesus of
the Matthew Gospel and the Jesus of the Luke Gospel
became one. The Zarathustra-Individuality, as an Ego,
first entered into the bodily sheaths of the Jesus
described in the Matthew Gospel; when this Jesus was
twelve years old, the Zarathustra-Ego passed over into
and continued to live in the Nathan Jesus of the Luke
Gospel, in order, within that body, to enrich the astral
body and Ego-bearer with the qualities attained in the
specially prepared physical and etheric bodies of the
Jesus of the Matthew Gospel. The higher members in the
Nathan Jesus were then ale to mature and in his thirtieth
year to receive the Being descending from above.

In relating
the course of these events, the writer of the Matthew
Gospel directed his attention primarily to the question:
What physical body and what ether to make it possible for
the Christ Being to tread the Earth? And his knowledge
enabled him to answer this question in the following way.
— In order that the suitable physical body and the
suitable etheric body might be produced through heredity
it was necessary that all the qualities once laid as
rudiments in Abraham should develop to the full extent
through the forty-two generations of the Hebrew people.
Then, continuing to answer the question, he said to
himself: A physical body and an etheric body of this
calibre could become a fitting instrument only if indwelt
by the greatest Individuality — Zarathustra —
who prepared mankind to understand the Christ. This
instrument could harbour the Zarathustra-Individuality
for as long as it made development possible, that is to
say, until the twelfth year, and the Individuality had
then to pass out of the body of the Matthew-Jesus into
the body of the Luke-Jesus. The writer of the Matthew
Gospel then turned his attention away from the
circumstances with which he was at first concerned, to
the Luke-Jesus, and follower the life of Zarathustra (in
the body of that Jesus) until the thirtieth year. That
was the time when Zarathustra had brought the astral body
and Ego-bearer to the stage where he could offer up all
the members in order that the Sun Spirit coming down from
above might take possession. All this is indicated in the
scene of the Baptism by John.

If we think
again of the separation of the Earth from the Sun [
Note 03 ] remembering that Christ
was the supreme Leader of the Beings who withdrew from
the Earth at that time, we shall realise that there are
Beings whose influence spreads only gradually on the
Earth, just as it is only in course of time that Christ's
influence has been able to make itself felt on the Earth.
But something else as well was connected with the
separation of the Sun. Here we must remind ourselves that
in respect of substance, the old Saturn-evolution was
comparatively simple. It was an existence in fire or
warmth. On Old Saturn there was as yet no air or water,
no light-ether — which first appeared during the
Old Sun-evolution. Then during the Old Moon-evolution the
watery element was added as a further condensation on the
one side, and the sound-ether as a further refinement or
rarefaction on the other. During Earth-evolution there
was a condensation to the solid or ‘earth’
element, and rarefaction to what we call the life-ether.
On Earth, therefore, we have warmth, air or gas, water,
and the solid or earth element; and as states or
rarefaction: light-ether, sound-ether, and life-ether,
this last being the most highly rarefied ether of which
we can have any knowledge.

With the
separation of the Sun, not only did its material part
leave the Earth, but its spiritual part too. After a time
the spiritual part returned to the Earth gradually
— but not completely. I spoke of this in Munich in
the lectures on the ‘days of creation’ [
Note 04 ] and will make only a
brief reference to it here. Of higher states of
rarefaction, man on Earth perceives only the
warmth-ether, and light. What he perceives as sound or
tone is a materialization of the real sound which lies in
the sound-ether. By sound-ether is meant the bearer of
what is called the ‘Harmony of the Spheres’,
perceptible only to clairaudience. True, the Sun in its
now ‘physical’ state sends its light to the
Earth, but this higher state is also present in it.

I have said
that those who have knowledge of these things are aware
of the meaning of Goethe's words at the beginning of
Faust:

The sun, with many a sister-sphere,
Still sings the rival psalm of wonder,
And still his fore-ordained career
Accomplishes with tread of thunder....

These words point to the Harmony of
the Spheres, to what lies in the sound-ether. But this
can be experienced by man only when he rises to its level
through Initiation or when a Being of the Sun descends in
order to convey it in the form of actual experience to
one chosen to be instrumental in promoting the
development of other men. For such an individual the Sun
begins to sound and the Harmonies of the Spheres to be
audible. —

Above the
sound-ether is the life-ether. And just as the word, the
meaning, is contained in mere sound as its inner content,
as a higher soul-reality, so too, ‘meaning’
and ‘word’ are bound up with the life-ether.
‘Word’ or ‘meaning’ are in this
sense identical with what was called
‘Honover’ in later Persian times and the
‘Logos’ by John the Evangelist. Sound or tone
filled with meaning belongs essentially to the Sun, and
the Beings of the Sun.

In early
post-Atlantean times, Zarathustra was among the blessed
ones whose ears were not deaf to this articulate,
resounding Sun and its Beings. It is no myth, but a
literal truth, that Zarathustra too had developed to the
stage where he received his teaching through the
‘Sun Word’. The glorious teachings given by
the old Zarathustra to his pupils were possible because
Zarathustra himself was an instrument through Whom the
tone, the very meaning and essence of the Sun Word
resounded Hence the Persian legend speaks of the Sun Word
proclaimed through the mouth of Zarathustra, of the
mysterious Word concealed behind the Sun. The legend is
speaking there of the astral body of the Sun, of Ahura
Mazda — the Sun Word, the '‘Logos’ in
Greek translation.

In those
ancient times a personality even of the exalted rank of
Zarathustra was not initiated to the stage of being able
consciously to receive the message that was to
be conveyed to mankind; such a personality was ensouled
by a higher Being to whose level he had not yet actually
risen. Zarathustra could teach as he did because the Sun
Aura was revealed to hi, because Ahura Mazdao resounded
within him, because the Sun Word, the great Aura, the
Light of Worlds, was proclaimed through him. Ahura
Mazdao, the great Aura, was the outer, corporeal nature
of the Sun God whose influences were being sent to man in
advance, before this Being was actually on the Earth. The
Sun Word was then a more inward power. —

Zarathustra
spoke to those who were his pupils in somewhat the
following way. — ‘You must realise that
behind the physical light of the Sun there is spiritual
light. Just as behind physical man there is his astral
body, his aura, so behind the Sun there is the great
Aura. The physical Sun is to be regarded as the
light-body of a Being who will one day descend to the
Earth; it is the outer, bodily raiment of this Being that
is perceived through clairvoyant vision and within this
bodily raiment there is soul. Just as soul
expresses itself through sound or tone, so does the Sun
Word, the Sun Logos, speak through the Sun Aura’...
And Zarathustra could give this promise to mankind.
— One day the great Aura, the Being of Light, will
come from divine-spiritual spheres, and the soul of that
Being will be the Sun Word. — This was the
prophetic wisdom, uttered for the first time by
Zarathustra, concerning the coming of the Sun Aura and of
the Sun Word.

From epoch
to epoch the tradition was preserved in the Mysteries
that the coming of the Sun Word, the Sun Logos, had been
prophesied to mankind and this was always the hope and
the great consolation of those who longed for a nobler
and better life. And the less exalted Sun-spirits who
linked themselves with the Earth and were actually
messengers of the Sun Word — they too were able to
give more and more definite teachings about the Spirit of
the Sun, the Sun Word, the Sun Aura.

This was
the one side of the Mystery-tradition as it lived on
through the epochs. The other side was that it behooved
men to know both in theory and by dint of effort that
they could grow nearer to the Being who was to descend to
the Earth. But in pre-Christian times it was not possible
to believe that any weak individual man could without
further ado approach the greatest of the Sun Beings, the
Leader of the Sun Spirits, the Christ. It was not
possible for an individual to achieve this through any
form of Initiation. Hence the Gospel of Matthew describes
how all the vital elements in the blood of the Hebrew
people were assembled in order to make it possible for
such a human being to come into existence. And on the
other side, the Gospel of Luke shows how the best and
highest qualities attainable by earthly man were
‘filtered’ through the seventy-seven
successive stages in order to produce the body capable of
receiving the greatest Being who was ever to descend to
the Earth.

The
position in the Mysteries was as follows. — Some of
those who needed to be instructed or influenced were weak
human beings; by no means all of them were capable of
grasping the nature of the goal to be attained by
humanity or by an individual. Hence those who were to be
initiated into the secrets of the Mysteries were divided
into classes and the secrets were approached in different
ways. The special teaching given to some individuals
concerned the outer life and what they must achieve in
order to become fitting instruments or
‘temples’ for the descending Sun Being. But
there were other pupils of the Mysteries who were taught
how the soul must learn in stillness and inner quietude
to understand and experience the nature of a Sun Spirit.
Can you picture that in the Mysteries there were pupils
whose particular task it was to order their outer life in
accordance with definite principles and that from early
childhood onwards their bodily development was guided in
a way that would enable them to become bearers, temples,
for a descending Sun Spirit? This was what happened in
olden times and it happens in the modern age too, only it
escapes the notice of materialistic observers.

Let us
suppose that the time is approaching when a sublime Being
is to descend from spiritual realms in order again to
give a stimulus to human evolution. Those who participate
in the Mysteries must wait in expectation for this to
happen; their task is to interpret the signs of the
times. In calmness and patience, without ostentation,
they must wait for a God to descend from heavenly heights
and give an impetus to mankind. But it is also their task
to observe humanity, to watch for a personality who can
be directed and made fit to be the vehicle, the temple,
for such a Being. If the Being who is to descend is very
exalted, the personality who is to be the temple must be
under guidance from earliest childhood. This actually
happens, only it is not perceived. Later on, however, in
accounts of the lives of such men, certain similar
features become apparent. Even if there are differences
in the external circumstances of their lives, a certain
underlying similarity is evident. Looking back over
history we find individuals here and there whose lives,
even outwardly, have taken a somewhat similar course.
There is no denying this and it has not escaped the
notice of certain modern researchers. In current, though
not very profound academic writings, tables of
similarities in the biographies of such individuals are
presented. Professor Jensen (of Marburg), for example,
has collected similarities in the life-histories of
Gilgamesh, Moses, Jesus, Paul. The tables set out certain
comparable features in the lives of each of these
individuals and are very convincing. No wonder the
materialistic mind of to-day is taken aback by the
remarkable similarities. Very naturally the conclusion
drawn is that one myth was copied from another, that the
writer of the life of Jesus copied from the life-history
of Gilgamesh, that the life-history of Moses is nothing
but a paraphrase of an ancient epic. And the final
conclusion reached is that none of them — neither
Moses, nor Jesus, nor Paul — existed as physical
personalities! People usually have no inkling of the
point to which materialistic interpretations are carried
by research today.

The truth
is that this similarity in such life-histories is simply
due to the fact that personalities into whom a divine
Being is to be received must be under direction and
guidance even in childhood. Nor will this be a surprise
to those who have any insight into the deeper course of
the evolution of humanity and of the world. Hence not
only comparative mythology but all attempts to find
similarities in the myths are really nothing but child's
play and lead nowhere. What useful purpose is served by
establishing that similar traits are to be found in the
lives of the Germanic Siegfried and some Greek or other
hero? It goes without saying that this will be so. The
important thing is not the covering but the Individuality
within the covering! It is the Individuality who is of
salient importance, not the particular course taken, let
us say, by Siegfried's life. But these things can be
established only through occult research.

The point
to bear in mind is that men destined to become vehicles,
or temples, for a Being who is to lift humanity to a
higher level are under very definite leadership and that
there will necessarily be similarities in the course and
in the fundamental features of their lives. Hence since
ancient times directives were always given in the
Mystery-centres concerning such men. Directives of the
same kind also existed in the communities of the Essenes
with reference to Christ Jesus: for example, what the
nature must be of those Beings who as the Solomon Jesus
and the Nathan Jesus were to provide the temple for the
sublime Sun Being, the Christ.

But there
were different classes, different kinds of Initiates;
aspirants for Initiation were not all of them initiated
into everything. To some it was made especially clear
what ordeals must be undergone by one who was expected to
become a worthy vehicle for a divine Being. And there
were others to whom it was made known how a divine Being
acts when revealing himself in a man — to put it
rather trivially, when revealing himself as a
‘genius’. Again, people fail to perceive
to-day that geniuses too show undoubted similarities.
Biographies nowadays are not written from the
vantage-point of the spirit. If an attempt were made to
describe the genius of Goethe, let us say, from such a
vantage-point, remarkable similarity would be found, fog
example, with the genius of Dante, of Homer, of
Aeschylus. But when modern biographies are being written,
notes are collected of trivial details in the external
lives of such men. That is what interests people. So we
have a prolific collection of notes on the life of Goethe
but as yet no true presentation of what Goethe really
was. Men declare — actually as the outcome of
tremendous arrogance — that they are incapable of
following the development of genius in the human
personality; the tendency is to drag the first, youthful
authors of certain poetic works into the limelight and
then talk in lordly style about the elemental freshness
and originality manifested in their early years, whereas
in later life these qualities have been lost and the
authors in question have become old. What really lies
behind this is that in their arrogance people are willing
to understand poets in their youth but are not willing to
keep pace with the experiences undergone in later life.
Great pride is taken in having remained young; age is
despised and people have no inkling that it is not the
old who have become ‘old’ but that they
themselves have remained children! This is a widespread
evil. But as it is so deeply rooted we need not wonder
that there is little understanding of the fact that a
divine Being can take possession of a human personality
and that the way in which such a Being manifests in the
different human personalities is fundamentally the
same.

Because the
acquisition of such knowledge entailed much arduous
effort, pupils in the Mysteries were divided into
classes. It is not to be wondered at that in certain
sections of the Mysteries teaching was given as to how a
man prepares himself to grow to the level where contact
with the divine Being is possible, whereas in other
classes the teaching concerned the actual descent of the
Logos, the Sun Word, the essence of Light in the Aura of
the Sun Being.

In the case
of Christ, the descent was infinitely complex and it
could be no surprise if more than four men had been
needed to understand such a momentous event. But there
were four who made efforts to do so. Two of them, the
writers of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, were at pains
to portray the nature of the personality who grew towards
the descending Sun Being. Matthew concerned himself
particularly with the physical body and the etheric body,
Luke with the astral body and Ego-bearer. Mark, on the
other hand, described the Sun Aura, the spiritual Light
that pervades cosmic space and streamed into the figure
of Christ Jesus. Hence his Gospel begins immediately with
the Baptism, when the Light of Worlds descended. The
Gospel of John describes the soul of the Sun Spirit, the
Logos, the Sun Word, the inner aspect. The
Gospel of John is therefore the mostly deeply inward of
the four.

The facts
were apportioned and the complex Being of Christ Jesus
described from four sides. All four Evangelists tell of
the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. But each of these four
writers of the Gospels is impelled to adhere to his
starting-point, from whence came the clairvoyant insight
enabling him to give some description of this complex
Being. — And now we will repeat what has been said
in order to impress it more firmly upon our minds.

Matthew
directs his gaze to the birth of the Solomon Jesus and
follows the gradual preparation of the physical body and
etheric body, perceiving how these sheaths are discarded
by Zarathustra and ho the qualities and faculties he had
acquired in the physical body and etheric body of the
Solomon Jesus are carried over by him into the Jesus of
the Luke Gospel. The writer of the Matthew Gospel must
then extend his gaze to what had not concerned him at the
beginning. But his attention is directed first and
foremost to the features that had formed his
starting-point: the destinies of the faculties that
passed over from the Solomon Jesus into the Nathan Jesus.
His gaze is directed less to the pristine purity of the
astral body and Ego-bearing principle in the Luke Jesus
and more to what had passed over from the Jesus with whom
he is chiefly concerned. And when the writer of the
Matthew Gospel is speaking of the Sun Being who has
descended, again he is more mindful of the faculties
possessed by Jesus of Nazareth because the physical body
and etheric body had been developed by the Solomon Jesus.
These faculties and qualities were naturally still
perceptible in Christ, and the writer of the Matthew
Gospel describes with particular exactitude this aspect
of Christ Jesus which was of primary importance to him
and upon which his attention had been focused at the
outset.

The writer
of the Gospel of Mark directs his attention from the
beginning to the Sun Sprit descending from heaven. His
gaze is focused, not upon any being of an earthly nature,
but upon the Sun Spirit who lived and worked in the
physical body. The physical figure on the Earth is only
the means whereby the indwelling Sun Spirit can be
portrayed. Hence Mark draws special attention to ho the
forces and powers of the Sun Spirit take effect.
Therefore although in the Gospel of Matthew and Mark a
great deal seems to be identical, their standpoints are
different. Matthew deals more especially with the aspect
of the sheaths and draws particular attention to the
later manifestations of qualities and faculties that were
already potentially present in early life; and he writes
in a way that reveals the effects produced by these
qualities. The writer of the Mark Gospel, on the other
hand, uses the physical figure of Jesus merely as a means
of showing what can be wrought on Earth by the Sun
Spirit. This is everywhere apparent. If you want to
understand the Gospels in detail, you must bear in mind
that the attention of each Evangelist turns ever and
again to the aspect with which he was primarily
concerned.

The writer
of the Luke Gospel, as would be expected, has
particularly in mind the astral body and Ego-bearing
principle, that is to say, not what the Being experiences
as an outer, physical personality, but in the astral body
as the bearer of feelings and sentient perceptions. The
astral body is also the bearer of creative faculties, of
compassion, of mercy. Bearing as He did the astral body
of the Nathan Jesus, Christ Jesus was the very embodiment
of these qualities. Thus the eyes of Luke are directed
from the beginning to all the manifestations of
compassion, to whatever Christ Jesus is able to
accomplish because He bears the astral body of the Nathan
Jesus.

And the
gaze of the writer of the John Gospel is focused upon the
very highest Power that can work on the Earth, upon the
inmost being and nature of the Sun Spirit, brought down
through the instrumentality of Jesus. John is not
concerned primarily with the physical body; his eyes are
turned to the Highest, to the Sun Logos; and the physical
Jesus is for him simply a means for perceiving how the
Sun Logos works and acts in humanity. His gaze too is
fixed upon those things with which he was concerned at
the beginning.

The
physical body and the etheric body are sheaths out of
which we pass during sleep. Both these members of human
nature contain forces outpoured by divine-spiritual
Beings who for millions upon millions of years have been
working at the building of this temple — the temple
of the physical body. We have lived in this temple since
the Lemurian epoch, causing its steady deterioration. But
it came to us originally as a product of the Saturn, Sun,
and Moon periods of evolution. Divine beings were living
and weaving in it. We an say of our physical body that it
is a temple built by the Gods who have fashioned it out
of solid matter to be our dwelling-place.

The etheric
body contains the finer substances of man's constitution
but owing to the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences they
are imperceptible to him. Elements belonging to the Sun
are also present in the etheric body; into it resounds
the Music of the Spheres, that which is perceptible
behind the physical as a manifestation of the Gods. Hence
we can say: Beings of exalted rank lie in the etheric
body, Beings who are akin to the Sun Gods — The
physical body and the etheric body, therefore are to be
regarded as the most perfect members of human nature.
When, during sleep, we have passed out of them, when they
have fallen away from us, they are pervaded and worked
through by divine Beings.

As he had
done from the beginning, the writer of the Matthew Gospel
was bound to give his chief attention to the physical
body in the case of Christ Jesus too. But the first
physical body was no longer in existence, having been
abandoned, as we have heard, in the twelfth year of life.
[ Note 05 ] The divine element, the
forces and powers, had passed (together with the
Zarathustra-Individuality) from that body into the other
physical body — the physical body of the Nathan
Jesus. The perfection of this physical body of the Being
now to be known as Jesus of Nazareth was due to the fact
that it was filled with the forces and powers that had
passed into it from the body of the Solomon Jesus. Let us
now picture the writer of the Matthew Gospel turning his
gaze to the dying Jesus on the Cross. His gaze had always
been directed to the aspect most important to him, to
what he had taken as his starting-point. At the
Crucifixion the spiritual forsakes the physical body and
therewith also the divine forces that had been taken over
into it. The writer of the Matthew Gospel directs his
gaze to the separation of the inner nature of Christ
Jesus from this divine element in His physical
constitution. The words that always rang out in the
ancient Mysteries when the spiritual nature of a man
emerged from the physical body in order to have vision in
the spiritual world, were these: ‘My God, my God,
how thou hast glorified me!’ — The writer of
the Matthew Gospel, with his attention fixed on the
physical body, changes these words to: ‘My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me!’ Thou has gone from
me, hast abandoned me (XXVII, 46). — The chief
attention of the writer of the Matthew Gospel has been
fixed upon this aspect.

The writer
of the Mark Gospel describes the coming of the outer
forces and powers of the Sun Aura, ho the Sun Aura, the
body of the Sun Being, unites with the etheric body. The
etheric body was in the same situation as our etheric
body is during sleep. As in our own case the outer forces
pass out with us when we sleep, so did they at the
physical death of Jesus. Hence the same words are found
in the Gospel of Mark (XV, 34).

The writer
of the Luke Gospel also directs his attention at the
death of Christ Jesus to what was his concern at the
beginning: the astral body and the Ego-bearing principle.
Hence the words he uses are different. His chief
attention is directed to the astral body in which at this
moment compassion and mercy and love reach their greatest
intensity. Hence the words: ‘Father forgive them;
for they know not what they do’ (XXIII, 34). These
words of love that could issue only from the astral body
to which the writer of the Luke Gospel has been pointing
from the beginning. And it is upon these qualities of
humility and resignation to God's will which have here
reached their greatest intensity and issue from the
astral body, that Luke directs his gaze at the end. Hence
the words in the Gospel: ‘Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit.’ (XXIII, 46).

The John
Gospel describes what must be fulfilled by man in
Earth-existence: the ordering of existence according to
the Sun Word. Hence his gaze is directed mainly to the
ordering of life as proclaimed fro the Cross of Golgotha.
He describes how in this hour Christ institutes a
brotherhood of a higher kind than that based on
blood-kinship. Brotherhood in its earlier forms arose
from ties of blood. Mary was the mother of the child
through blood-relationship. But soul united with soul in
love — that is what was instituted through
Christ Jesus. To the disciple whom He loved He gives, not
the one who was the mother by blood, but He gives him the
one who is his true mother in the spirit. And so the
words resound from the Cross with their new meaning:
‘Behold thy son!’ — ‘`Behold thy
mother!’ (XIX, 26, 27). The principle inherent in
the life-ether by which the ordering of life is
determined and community of a new kind established
— that is what streamed into the Earth through
Christ's Deed.

There is
one supreme reality, the reality of Christ Himself behind
everything the Evangelists describe. But each of them
writes from the viewpoint he adopted at the beginning.
Each had necessarily to direct his seership to what his
particular preparation enabled him to understand; and the
rest passed him by.

We shall
now admit that it is not because this momentous event is
described from four different sides that it seems full of
contradictions; on the contrary, we realise that we can
in some measure come to understand it only through being
able gather the four sides into a whole. Why it is that
Peter's avowal stands in the Matthew Gospel only and not
in the others then seems entirely natural.

Mark
describes Christ as the Sun Power, as the universal,
cosmic Power working into the Earth — but in a new
way. He is therefore speaking of the direct effects
wrought by the Sun Aura. And the Luke Gospel describes
the inmost nature of Christ Jesus especially, therefore,
the astral body, the factor of individuality, how man
lives entirely within himself; it is there that he
functions in his own essential nature. The urge to
cultivate a communal life where a man enters into
relationship with other men des not lie primarily in the
astral body, but in the etheric body. Hence there is no
opportunity or inducement for Luke to write about the
founding of any community. And certainly there is none in
the case of the writer of the John Gospel who is
concerned first and foremost with the Ego-nature.

On the
other hand there is every inducement for the writer of
the Matthew Gospel who is telling of Christ Jesus as Man,
to describe happenings that are possible because God was
once present in a human being. What God as Man among men
can establish in the way of relationships between human
beings, in the way of communities — this would
necessarily be described by the Evangelists who tells of
Christ Jesus in His essentially human aspect. The
attention of this Evangelist has from the beginning been
focused upon how Christ works as Man through the
faculties derived from the physical body and etheric
body. If we have insight into these things it will seem
quite natural that the words which have given rise to so
much controversy occur only in the Matthew Gospel:
‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church’, i.e. my community.

A survey of
the endless discussions that take place about these words
among theologians of every shade of opinion invariably
brings evidence of peculiar and characteristic reasons
for their acceptance or rejection, but nowhere of any
understanding of their deeper meaning. Those who reject
them do so because the external community of the Roman
Catholic Church is founded upon them. They may have been
misused in this sense but that is no proof that they
were, as is sometimes alleged, inserted deliberately for
the benefit of the Roman Church. Nor do those who contest
their implications really know what to advance against
their validity, because they do not perceive the possible
distortions and misinterpretations. The theologians find
themselves facing a strange dilemma. So one of them
declares that the Mark Gospel is the earliest of the
four; that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were copied
from it and additions made; furthermore, that because the
writer of the Matthew Gospel was particularly intent upon
promoting the idea of community, he inserted the Words
‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church.’

In the case
of many passages the traditional texts do not help
because it is impossible to be certain of exactly what
they contain. But the words of Peter's avowal in the
Matthew Gospel are among the least disputed of any,
because there is no philological reason whatever for
calling them into question — as there is in the
case of many others owing to the complicated history of
the tradition behind them. ‘Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God.’ ‘Thou Peter, and
upon this rock I will build my community; and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it.’ No objection
can be made.to these words — nor indeed is ever
made —from the standpoint of philology, for there
is no text to justify it. There may have been hopes that
a basis for objections would be forthcoming from recently
discovered texts, but it so happens that the passage in
question is indecipherable in these texts, the relevant
portion being very corrupt. That at any rate is the
verdict of philology. Naturally we must rely here upon
the reports of those who have actually examined the
documents.

This
particular saying, therefore, cannot even be considered
to be a variant of another. According to philology itself
these words are among the most authentic of all and in
view of the whole character of the Matthew Gospel we can
well understand why they occur in it. In this Gospel
Christ Jesus is depicted as Man. Once we have this clue
we shall by able to apply it everywhere and we shall
understand the Matthew Gospel. We shall also understand
the parables told by Christ Jesus to His disciples and to
those outside His immediate circle.

In the
lecture yesterday we heard how man evolves from below
upwards: how as a flower of his human nature he unfolds
the spiritual or consciousness-soul and develops to the
stage where he encounters the Christ Impulse. The five
members of human nature — etheric body, astral
body, sentient soul, intellectual of mind-soul,
consciousness-soul — developing through the five
civilization-epochs, evolve from below to higher stages.
A man can mature and so imbue them with the content
which, when the time comes enables them to be permeated
by the Christ Impulse. Humanity evolves in such a way
that in future time all men can become partakers of
Christ. But they must develop these five members to the
appropriate stage. If they fail to do so they will not be
ready to receive the Christ. If through their different
incarnations they make no efforts to develop these
members to the stage where they can receive the Christ,
such men cannot be united with Him, even if He comes for
they have ‘no oil in their lamps’. —
that is, in the five members of their being. Those who
have poured no oil into their lamps are depicted in a
wonderful and beautiful parable as the five foolish
virgins who have not trimmed their lamps in time and
cannot therefore unite with Christ; the five, however,
who have provided oil for their lamps are able to unite
with Him when the hour has come. All the parables that
are based on numbers shed profound illumination upon the
impulses given by Christ to men.

And
further. — Christ brought it home to those who
concerned themselves with His teaching from outside that
they, too, were accustomed not to regard everything
merely in its material actuality but as a sign or token
of something different. He wanted to call attention to
their characteristic way of thinking. He asked for a coin
and pointed to the image of the Caesar upon it. This was
done in order to make the people realise that the coin
gives expression to something quite apart from the metal
itself, namely, the fact of being subject to a particular
rulership, a particular ruler. ‘What in this coin
pertains to Caesar, render unto Caesar’ — and
that lies in the image, not in the metal. ‘But
learn’ — so He wished to imply —
‘learn also to regard man as the bearer and temple
of the living God. Regard a man exactly as you regard a
coin; learn to perceive in a man the image of God and
then you will know that he belongs to God.’

In all
these parables there is a meaning far deeper than the
trivial one that is commonly accepted. And the deeper
meaning is discovered when it is known that Christ did
not use parables in the way they are so often used in our
journalistic age. Christ draws them from human nature
itself, giving them in such a form that if a man were to
think them out and apply them to his own being, he would
be compelled to adopt the attitude appropriate in each
particular domain. It had to be demonstrated to man how
his thinking must be carried over from one domain to
another when it was desirable to show him that certain
methods of thought may lead to absurdity.

Here is an
example. — When, for the first time, people began
to invent all kinds of ‘Sun myths’ in
connection with the Buddha, Christ, and others, this
finally exceeded the limit of what a certain man could
tolerate. Finding the same kind of thing still happening,
this man said the following. — ‘There is no
end to what can be done through this method of applying
the imagery of myths and stellar constellations to some
important event. If someone comes forward and, in order
to prove that Christ Jesus never lived, points out that
the story of Christ's life is simply a Sun myth, it can
also be proved by the same method that no Napoleon ever
existed. Nothing is easier than to say: in
‘Napoleon’ there is contained the name of
Apollo, the Sun God. ‘N’ as a prefix to a
name in Greek does not detract from but enhances its
significance: hence Napoleon — N'Apollo — is
actually a kind of super-Apollo. Further remarkable
similarities can be discovered. Dr. Drews, the Professor
of Philosophy, who has discovered, forsooth, that Jesus
never existed, has found similarity in names such as
Jesus, Joses, Jason, etc. Again, remarkable assonances
can be found between the names of Letitia, the mother of
Napoleon, and Leto, the mother of Apollo. Going still
further, one can say: Around Apollo, the Sun, there are
twelve constellations; around Napoleon there were twelve
Marshals who are nothing but symbols of the zodiacal
constellations around the Sun. Moreover the hero of the
Napoleon myth has six brothers and sisters — making
seven. There are seven planets. — Conclusion:
Napoleon never existed !’

This is a
very witty satire on the symbolic interpretations that
are so fashionable nowadays. People never really learn;
if they did they could not fail to realise that according
to the methods that are again being applied to-day it has
long since been proved that Napoleon never lived.
Humanity never learns; for by using the same arguments
proof is obtained that Jesus never lived either!

These
things show how necessary it is to approach with due
preparation — with inner preparation too —
what the Gospels tell us about the greatest event in
history. Let us also realise that in this very respect it
is easy for anthroposophists to go wrong. Playing with
symbols derived from the stars has been by no means
unknown even in the Anthroposophical Movement. In this
course of lectures particularly, when I have spoken of
the greatest event in the evolution of humanity in
connection with its revelation in the language of the
stars, my desire has been to show how this language of
the stars was used in the true and right way when the
happenings were really understood.

And now let
us turn our thoughts to the culminating event narrated in
the Gospels. I have already spoken of the Baptism and the
history of the life and death of Christ Jesus as
representing two stages of Initiation, and I will now add
only the following. — Christ Jesus had led His
disciples to the stage where they were able to see how
the innermost core of man's being passes out into the
Macrocosm; they saw through death and beyond death. The
Resurrection must never be thought of in the usual,
rather trivial sense. Think only of the words in the
Matthew Gospel and also in the John Gospel where the
truth of Paul's subsequent declaration is confirmed,
namely that at Damascus he had seen the Risen Christ. He
says expressly that he himself had seen what other
brethren, the twelve and the five hundred, had also seen.
Paul, as well as the others, had seen Him after the
Resurrection. (I. Cor. XV, 4-6.)

This is
clearly indicated in the Gospel story. Mary Magdalene,
who had seen Christ Jesus only shortly before, sees Him
after the Resurrection and supposes Him to be the
gardener. It would have been impossible not to recognize
Him had there been no change in His appearance. You would
not believe anyone who told you that he would not have
recognized the same person he had seen only a few days
before. Quite evidently there had been a transformation.
Close study of the Gospels will show clearly that as a
result of the Mystery of Golgotha and of all the
happenings in Palestine, the eyes of the disciples were
opened and they beheld Christ as the Spirit weaving and
working through the world; they knew Him as he was after
the physical body had been given over to the Earth but
they knew too that He would now remain with the Earth,
working as powerfully as He did while in the physical
body.

This too is
brought out in the Matthew Gospel, in words that may well
be considered the most significant of any to be found in
ancient records. It is made absolutely clear that Christ
was once present in a human physical body, that this
event was not an event only, but an active
cause, an impulse. The Sun Word, the
Sun Aura, once spoken of by Zarathustra as a reality
outside and beyond the Earth, became through the
Christ-Jesus-life a power that is and will remain united
with the Earth. Something different from anything that
had been present before that life was now united with the
Earth:

It behooves
anthroposophists to understand this and therewith to
realise that it was the Risen Christ who could reveal
Himself to the clairvoyant vision of the disciples as the
Spirit now pervading Earth-existence. Hence He could say:
‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world’ (i.e. to
the end of the Earth's days).

Spiritual
Science should enable us to understand that since that
time the Sun Aura has been united with the Earth Aura and
that this can be seen by one whose eyes of spirit are
opened; furthermore that this Sun Aura in the Earth Aura
which became visible to Paul, can also be
‘heard’ when the inner ears are open and the
Sun Word becomes audible, as it did to Lazarus —
the one initiated by Christ Jesus Himself. Spiritual
Science exists in order to prepare us to know this in all
reality. Spiritual Science is an interpreter of what has
come to pass in the spiritual evolution of the world and
for this reason will strive to give effect to what Christ
Jesus Himself wished to establish, according to the
Matthew Gospel.

A beautiful
saying in this Gospel is usually quite wrongly
translated. In its true form, the saying is: ‘I
have not come to send peace away from this Earth but to
send away the sword!’ The most beautiful message of
peace has in the course of time been distorted into its
very opposite! (Matt. X, 24). Christ entered into the
spiritual sphere of Earth-existence in order gradually to
rescue it from elements that bring about discord and
disharmony in mankind. Spiritual Science will establish
peace when it is truly Christian, in the sense of
bringing about the unity of religions. It can unite not
only those in regions immediately around us but can
establish peace over the whole Earth, because it
understands the nature of the deed wrought by the
greatest Bringer of peace. It is certainly not in
accordance with Christ's will that fanatical men and
women should journey from one part of the Earth to
another in attempts to force a narrow, hide-bound
Christianity upon human beings who have no aptitude for
its teachings when these are presented in a form
appropriate for a different people. Proposals to carry
Christian teaching to the East in the form it has assumed
in some particular region are apt be very mistaken. As
anthroposophists we know well that Christ does not belong
to the ‘Christians’ only; we know that He is
the same Being whom Zarathustra called Ahura Mazdao and
the seven Rishis of ancient India, Vishva Karman. We in
the West realise that even if in the East men use
different names, it is in reality Christ of whom they are
speaking.

Our aim is
to understand Christ in a way that keeps abreast of the
evolution of humanity, of progress among men We realise
that no records or forms of knowledge in which Christ is
repudiated can shed any light upon His life and nature,
but those alone which consciously bear within them His
own living influence. If in the truly Christian sense we
speak to other, non-Christian peoples of Vishva Karman,
of Ahura Mazdao, we know well that they understand us
although no name is forced upon them, and that of
themselves they will eventually come to understand
Christ. We have no wish to force the name of Christ upon
them. For if we are not only anthroposophists but
occultists too, we are well aware that names in
themselves are of no account, that it is the Being alone
who of importance. Could we for one moment persuade
ourselves that it would be permissible to call the Christ
Being by a different name, we should not hesitate to do
so. For to us it is the truth that matters and not any
predilection due to the fact that we inhabit a particular
area of the Earth and belong to a particular people. Let
it not be thought that Christ can be understood by means
which His influence has not reached. Christ can indeed be
found by other nations, but He Himself must be the source
of the means for understanding Him.

No reproach
should be cast on anthroposophists for being unwilling,
in their study of Christianity, to make use of methods
and forms not derived from Christianity itself. Christ
cannot be understood through oriental terminology; those
who use such nomenclature may believe that they
understand Him but they do not. What would it mean if in
the domain of Theosophy we were expected to hold the
oriental view of Christ? We should be obliged to reject
the idea of having Christ brought from the East! Such a
measure would force us to take the West over to the East
and to form our conception of Christ accordingly. This
cannot and must not be, not because of aversion but
because the oriental concepts, with their more ancient
origin, are not capable of yielding any real
understanding of Christ. Such understanding is possible
only when it is known that Christ belongs to the line of
evolution into which Abraham was born and the Moses. But
into Moses there passed part of the being of Zarathustra.
We have thus to look for Zarathustra in the events
resulting from his influence upon Moses. Nor must we look
for Zarathustra in the ancient Zoroastrian writings, but
where he was reincarnated in Jesus of Nazareth. Account
must always be taken of evolution! In the same way we
must not seek the Buddha where he lived, and from being a
Bodhisattva rose to Buddhahood six hundred years B.C.,
but where he is described by the Luke Gospel, shining
down from the heights of the spiritual world into the
astral body of the Nathan Jesus. [ Note
06 ] There we see the Buddha at a later stage of his
activity.

This shows
us how the religions work together in order to ensure
that mankind shall progress. It is not enough to lecture
about anthroposophical principles; what matters is to
transform them into feeling; nor should we talk
of tolerance and at the same time be intolerant because
of predilection for some particular religion. We are
truly tolerant only when we measure each religion by its
own standard and understand the fundamental character of
each. — Naturally, when we speak of the different
systems of religion having worked together to bring
Christianity into existence, this is not due to our own
particular viewpoint. The truth is that in those lofty
heights where the great spiritual Beings are at work,
events have been different from those caused by the
actions of adherents of particular religions on the
Earth. For example a Council was summoned in Tibet to
establish an orthodox doctrine connected with the name of
the Buddha at the very time when the real Buddha had
descended from higher spheres in order to let his
inspiration flow into the astral body of the Jesus of the
Luke Gospel. What happens again and again is that
adherents of a religion on the Earth cling to what has
continued as an aftermath on Earth. The work of the Gods
has, however, been carried meanwhile to further stages in
order that progress may be possible for humanity.
Progress is best achieved when men endeavor to understand
their Gods, to keep pace with the progress made by the
Gods who are looking upon them. From this realisation
there should grow in us a living understanding of the
Gospels.

In our
study of the three Gospels we have found something
different in each of them. Cosmology of an intimate kind
will be revealed when the time comes for us to study the
Mark Gospel. [ Note 07 ] This is
because a conception of Ahura Mazdao working through all
the realms of space can be yielded by study of the Mark
Gospel, just as the secrets of blood-relationship, the
link connecting the individuality through heredity with
the people from whom he has sprung, have been presented
to us in the Matthew Gospel.

I beg you
to think of what I have put before you in these lectures
as one aspect only of the great Christ Event, for by no
means everything has been said. The time may not yet have
come to say, even to a very few, what it is possible to
say about these profound mysteries. The best outcome of
our studies will be that we do not only grasp these
things intellectually but make them part of the very
fibres of our soul-life, part of our life of feeling and
of our hearts, and allow them to live there. If the words
of the Gospels are imprinted in our hearts and we truly
understand them they become powers and forces which fill
our whole being and engender great inner strength. And we
shall find that this strength remains with us through
life.

To-day,
when I have to bring these lectures on the Matthew Gospel
to a conclusion, I want to speak in the way I am
accustomed to speak at the end of our Summer courses, but
in special connection with this text which among original
Christian records gives the most beautiful presentation
of the human aspect of Christ Jesus.

What is it
that strikes us particularly about the Matthew Gospel,
where from the very beginning the manhood of Christ Jesus
is brought into prominence? Great though the distance
assuredly is between an ordinary man on the Earth and the
one who was able to receive the Christ Being into
himself, nevertheless the Matthew Gospel shows us —
when we accept it with all humility — the dignity
of man and what he may become. For although our own
nature maybe far, far removed from that of Jesus of
Nazareth, we may yet say to ourselves that the human
nature we bear is able to receive into itself the Son of
God, the Son of the living God. Herein lies the promise
that the Son of God will henceforth remain united with
spiritual Earth-existence and that when Earth-existence
has reached its goal all men will be filled with the
substance and being of Christ in so far as they
themselves have inwardly desired this. We need humility
to harbour such an ideal. For if we harbour it without
humility it gives rise to arrogance, to pride; we think
only about what we can be as men reminding ourselves all
too seldom of how little we have hitherto achieved. This
ideal must be approached with humility. Then it appears
so great, so mighty, so majestic, so impressive in its
brilliance, that in itself it is an exhortation to
humility. And when we are aware of the truth of this
ideal, no matter how meagre our forces may be they will
bear us to ever higher stages along the path to our
divine goal.

In The
Portal of Initiation indications are to be found of
the intensity and crescendo of feelings that arise along
this path. In the second scene, Johannes Thomasius is
shattered in soul under the impression of the words:
‘O man know thyself !’ And then, in the ninth
scene, of the words: ‘O man, experience
thyself!’ he is transported in exultation to cosmic
realms. This brings home to us once again the majesty and
grandeur of the figure of Jesus in the Matthew Gospel;
humility fills us and our own insignificance becomes
doubly apparent. But through the inner truth and reality
revealed to us we are rescued from the abyss that seems
to stretch between our own littleness and what we should
and can become. If at times we feel overwhelmed when
contemplating the stature of the Gods in a man, we shall
nevertheless, as human beings, feel something of the
divine Impulse, some¬thing of the '‘Son of the
living God', by turning our minds to Christ Jesus who as
the highest representative of the ‘I', Himself
exhorts us in words that will ring through all ages to
come: ‘O man, experience thyself !’

If we
understand the human aspect of Christ Jesus as presented
in the Matthew Gospel — and that is why it is
closer to us than the other Gospels — there will
stream from it courage in life, strength, hope in all our
labours. This will be the very best proof that we have
understood what these words were intended to convey.

“ A great step forward in world history
can only be achieved
if divine beings unite with man's condition.
Only then can spirit eyes unfold
which should develop in the human souls,
when first a power of heaven has placed the seed
within one human being.
................................
I had to join a deed of heaven
unto a human destiny."

2. See the Course
on The Gospel of St. Luke.

3. To be able to picture these
cosmic happenings in greater detail, the reader is
advised to turn to Occult Science—an
Outline, chapter IV, p. 103 onwards.

4. See Genesis: Secrets of the Bible
Story of Creation, pp. 34-59.

5. See also Lecture Five: The Gospel
of Luke, p. 106

6. See The Gospel of St. Luke,
Lectures Two and Five.

7. The following two lecture cycles were
subsequently given by Rudolf Steiner:

Background to the Gospel of St. Mark, 13
lectures, Berlin and other cities, October 1910 to
June 1911.